Wirth, Engel, and the City Life

In Louis Wirth’s “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” the dominance of the city is attributed in its concentration of commercial, industrial, financial, and administrative industries. This reminds me of Engels’ “The Great Towns” in which he attributes the expansion of agriculture and farming to the academic and scientific progress that takes place in cities. Wirth examines the “potency” of the city’s influences on “molding the character of social life into urban form.” The influence of the city is not only experienced through innovations in agriculture, and farming, but also through social life. This influences younger generations into leaving the countryside for the social, and academic opportunities available in the city. The blending of different cultures and customs in cities also tends to reduce prejudice, which influences the social milieu of younger generations. Engels attributes this mixture of ideas in helping reduce social prejudice in large cities. In today’s culture, this is evident in the emergence of fashion movements aimed at capturing the essence of city life.  Modern day clothing stores like “Urban Outfitters” and other clothing stores that seek to use urban culture to attract customers, are not only popular in large cities, but also rural areas. During a recent trip to a small Colorado mountain town, I noticed that teenagers tend to dress similarly across the country, regardless of their living conditions. Wirth states, “the bonds of kinship, of neighborliness, and the sentiments arising out of living together for generations under a common folk tradition are likely to be absent or, at best, relatively weak in an aggregate of which have such diverse origins and backgrounds.” The city allows one to be free. The city eliminates the scrutiny found in small towns, or rural areas. Wirth describes that city-dwellers tend to rely on more people for the satisfaction of their “life-needs;” whereas, those living in rural conditions depend on less people to satisfy their “life-needs,” but depend more heavily on specific people than city-dwellers. This limits the expansion of ideas, and dialogue. The strong reliance on specific people places a social burden to please specific people, which can intensify prejudice, and reduce public dialogue. The anonymity of city-dwellers can also lead to social decadence. The concentration of large groups of people promotes a diffusion of responsibility amongst those living in densely populated areas, which can also lead to crime, and the obliteration of moral values.  Engels describes something similar in “Great Towns.” He meticulously describes the slums scattered throughout the United Kingdom as testaments to the injustices that take place in the cities. These harsh conditions for the laboring class could be influenced by the financial structure of a city, and not solely connected as a characteristic that is unique to all cities. In the cities, there at the most minimal level, exists an opportunity to establish self-identity. This characteristic could be the factor that has set into motion many social movements aimed at improving the conditions of the working class. The movements seem to always ignite in the cities because city-dwellers often have more freedom of expression than those living in rural areas.